I've been watching "reality" tv almost every day. How much of it is reality is a topic that's been commented upon enough that I'm not going to go into it here. It's a genre that has metastacized into some mutant that has long since left behind what it was created for.

I know this makes me fairly hypocritical, stating that I watch it and then criticizing it in the next sentence. I know this and don't care. I have so few vices that I can take on a guilty pleasure. It also won't matter when I say I don't watch some shows. "Good crap" and "bad crap" being the terms. Not sure how to distinguish them from each other but I don't watch network tv's idea of reality tv. I can't stand Survivor, American Idol or whatever else they show now and have hardly seen any of them.

I prefer the cable, particular VH1's idea of reality. Rock of Love, Celebrity Fit Club, Scott Baio is 45 and Single and elsewhere Gene Simmon's Family Jewels and The Two Coreys. Gene Simmons is particularly interesting because you get to see what a complete asshole he really is.

There is nothing to gain from these shows but I found they give me a sort of calming peace. I watch them at the very end of the day, just before I go to bed. Some days I can't even keep my eyes open. It is soothing in an odd way.

Today I went to see C. A mutual friend was there, M, who told us about huge pile of belongings left on the sidewalk a few blocks away. Someone just up and left leaving all their stuff and the landlord was cleaning house. When I left to see her it was a beautiful day; sun shining, fairly warm but not hot. It was good to be out. When I left to go with M to see the stuff it had grown darker and cloudier.
I have most everything I need in my place now but I was curious to see what was there. It was an odd assortment- mostly low level tag sale stuff. There was a nice sofa I would have taken if I didn't already have a better one and a futon. Fairly good dressers too but I wasn't going to take them.
Instead I came out of it with a lot of vintage girly stuff for A, a couple of weird curios including an owl sculpture I don't know what to do with but couldn't pass up and tons of really bad cds- Fleetwood Mac, Rod Stewart, dance compilations I'm going to throw away. I still have tons of burnt cds I could use the covers for.
I knew it would rain. It had gotten dark and the air was still like just before a big storm. C had called and said there was a tornado warning but since she lived closed by I was only a few blocks from home. It started to drizzle as I made my way home. I stepped up the pace, knowing it would only get worse.
Less than half a minute after it started drizzling sheets of rain were whipping down. Wind was so rough I found it difficult to move with my big basket of weird shit. The drizzling turned to rain, the rains turned heavy then to a downpour then to a monster, power lines out, tree branches in the road perfect storm, all in less than a minute.
I chugged home as fast as I could, knowing it would be pointless to try to stay dry or cover up. Everywhere the rain could go it would. My socks were sponges, my shoes were sloshing with each step, my shirt hung off me.
I finally gave up, walking peacefully through the last two blocks. I couldn't get any wetter and there was no point in even trying to stay dry. It felt good, a nice clean feeling. I almost felt as if I was swimming.
I made it to the door where my two upstairs neighbors gave the brilliant, "Wow, you're drenched." I didn't mind it though, it actually felt good. I peeled off my clothes, hung them around the apartment to dry and checked out my phone and my ipod, both in my pockets at the time.
My ipod was working the whole way until I tried to turn it off and it froze. My phone was blinking out and the display was screwy. Doing all I could I tried to dry them off but neither is operable. For a while my ipod was flashing on and off, regardless of what I tried to do. It felt warm though it wasn't plugged in and was barely turned off. I think it achieved sentience for a while and was about to revolt.

Goddamn it, this sucks. I could use some reality tv.